hing light which is not heavy, or great which is not small.' And
he extends this relativity to the conceptions of just and good, as well
as to great and small. In like manner he acknowledges that the same
number may be more or less in relation to other numbers without any
increase or diminution (Theat.). But the perplexity only arises out of
the confusion of the human faculties; the art of measuring shows us what
is truly great and truly small. Though the just and good in particular
instances may vary, the IDEA of good is eternal and unchangeable. And
the IDEA of good is the source of knowledge and also of Being, in which
all the stages of sense and knowledge are gathered up and from being
hypotheses become realities.

Leaving the comparison with Plato we may now consider the value of
this invention of Hegel. There can be no question of the importance of
showing that two contraries or contradictories may in certain cases be
both true. The silliness of the so-called laws of thought ('All A = A,'
or, in the negative form, 'Nothing can at the same time be both A, and
not A') has been well exposed by Hegel himself (Wallace's Hegel), who
remarks that 'the form of the maxim is virtually self-contradictory,
for a proposition implies a distinction between subject and predicate,
whereas the maxim of identity, as it is called, A = A, does not fulfil
what its form requires. Nor does any mind ever think or form conceptions
in accordance with this law, nor does any existence conform to it.'
Wisdom of this sort is well parodied in Shakespeare (Twelfth Night,
'Clown: For as the old hermit of Prague, that never saw pen and ink,
very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc, "That that is is"...for
what is "that" but "that," and "is" but "is"?'). Unless we are willing
to admit that two contradictories may be true, many questions which lie
at the threshold of mathematics and of morals will be insoluble puzzles
to us.

The influence of opposites is felt in practical life. The understanding
sees one side of a question only--the common sense of mankind joins
one of two parties in politics, in religion, in philosophy. Yet, as
everybody knows, truth is not wholly the possession of either. But the
characters of men are one-sided and accept this or that aspect of the
truth. The understanding is strong in a single abstract principle and
with this lever moves mankind. Few attain to a balance of principles
or recognize truly how in all human thin